Today, insults, whether intended or not stung my eyes. I had entered a photography competition presented by a local arts non-profit. I received an invitation to an awards ceremony and there was an outside chance that I had won at least an honorable mention, but no. So I showed up at the event, glanced at the winning photographs, which in my opinion, weren’t any better than my own.
All the winners were men. One man had all five of his photographs win honorable mentions. First and Second Prize went to famous sculptors. Hmmm, seems like some kind of old boys networking at play. Why even bother entering competitions when they’re skewed anyway? Then the director of the gallery further insulted me by suggesting that I was a beginner and I could always enter again next year. No thanks.
So later, when I felt a bit better, I thought of doing a humorous post lampooning local communities or networks that celebrate themselves. So in this post, not in the real world, all of my photographs receive honorable mentions from my invisible peers, who ever they might be. So here folks are photographs ignored by the “experts”.
One of the five photos I entered
One of the five photos I entered
another entry
I could keep going, but I’ll stop now. At least I had an adventure going around Bellingham and taking photographs of outdoor sculpture. At least my anger led to this blog post and people outside the “arts” community can enjoy these photographic explorations of form. And I get to make the point that amateur photographer does not equate to novice. I’ve been involved with photography since the age of 16 and I come from a family of photographers, who yes, consider themselves amateurs.
Thank you for visiting.
All Photographs by Patricia Herlevi, All Rights Reserved
Post Script: I’m going to post stories on this blog that literary magazine editors rejected over the years. It’s time to get those stories out of the files and into people’s hearts.
Localore 
Oh, it’s a beauty contest like dog shows, ice skating…I’ve found that local competitions are pretty iffy as far as actual impartial judging skill. Even the best judge has tendencies to be partial to certain things – like texture, or shadows or composition….
Some of these are very good. The last one is great whimsy. The leaning metal panels is cool – the pairing of the log “stairs” with the real stairs has impact. Yep, you’ve got an eye. Don’t take it so seriously.
And you know that the ordinary person sometimes likes thing “experts” hate.
3 cheers for the ordinary person. In the end, it’s subjective. I’ve seen this especially with novels. The experts tell writers to stick to a myriad of conventions that the average reader never notices anyway. As long as the story is universal and the characters relatable (is this a word?), then the novel has its market. With photography, it’s subjective too. I mean if I took a bad photo of a puppy, composition-wise, dog lovers aren’t going to care.